With High Unemployment Rates Among Young Adults, They Should Look to Friends for Help

National Scene Magazine, February '09 National article


With Unemployment Among Young Adults on Rise, College Students Should Look to Friends, Technology For Help


Written by: Karen Benardello


Achieving the American dream of being offered multiple high-paying, respectable jobs used to just require receiving a college degree. But now as the job market is saturated with recent college graduates, and the economy is in a recession, the United States Department of Labor reported the first decrease in new jobs in four years, which is hitting the post-graduate age group harder than the rest of the population.

Unemployment among 20- to 24-year-olds, the age group during which most college students graduate, rose to 9.8 percent in 2008, as opposed to the 7.7 percent it reached in 2007, according to the Labor Department.

The department also reported that there was only a monthly average of 44,000 new jobs across the country for June, July and August 2008, the time most college students start looking for employment, as opposed to the 110,000 it projected. This is in part due to the fact that approximately 55 percent of hiring managers said they would not be hiring additional summer employees, according to a study conducted by the website SnagAJob.com.

Students should get an internship in their chosen field, even if it’s unpaid, as it helps them get experience, connections and their foot in the door. They should also start their job search early, even if it’s a semester before they graduate, so that they can network as much as possible and keep in touch with people they know who are already working in their chosen field.

For those people who don’t find their dream positions right away, they should turn to entry-level career positions in nursing and senior care, government services and homeland security, accounting and technology, as the online job search engine Jobfox.com reported over the summer that there is a need to fill these jobs the most right now. Anyone needing a job should look into these areas, as employers believe that presently, the most desirable potential employees are those with degrees in math, science and technology because the health care, information technology and accounting industries are thriving.